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Astronaut, 1992 grad Jack Fischer inspires teens at Centaurus High School in Lafayette

By Amy Bounds Camera Staff Writer

Posted:
09/13/2012 06:15:32 PM MDT

Updated:
09/13/2012 06:19:21 PM MDT

LAFAYETTE -- Astronaut Jack Fischer told students at Centaurus High School to ignore those who say you need to go to Fairview or Cherry Creek for the best high school education.

"There are the opportunities here for you to do more than they do," the 1992 Centaurus High graduate said.

He spoke Thursday to the school's sophomores and juniors, along with talking to some of the students in the pre-engineering program. He said he volunteered to talk at Centaurus because "this is my school, my family." His three older siblings also graduated from Centaurus, as did his wife.

Fischer, a lieutenant colonel in the Air Force, was selected in 2009 as a member of NASA's 20th astronaut class. He completed training in July 2011 and works for the International Space Station and Soyuz branches of the NASA Astronaut Office.

He said his desire to be an astronaut was sparked when he was 6 and saw a rocket during a visit to the Johnson Space Center.

He showed the students a picture of himself at 17, noting that he was 5 feet tall and weighed 78 pounds. At the Air Force Academy, he said, he volunteered "for everything."

"I wasn't the fastest," he said. "I wasn't the smartest. I work harder than anybody."

He shared a video compilation of his astronaut training, traveling around the world and doing everything from survival training to ocean diving to a trip in the "vomit comet" -- a reduced-gravity aircraft that simulates what it's like to orbit Earth.

"It feels like you're Superman," he said. "It's worth the puke."

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Before being accepted to the astronaut class, he served in the Air Force in two combat tours in southwest Asia after the attacks of Sept. 11. He also was a test pilot, flying "all sorts of stuff."

"I loved it," he said.

But even as he was flying, he said, he was studying. As a test pilot, he studied Russian because he knew it would give him a better chance of getting into the astronaut program.

"You don't have to know your dream right now," he said. "You just have to seize the opportunities that you're given. If you don't work hard, if you don't take what you've been given and make something out of it, you won't be anything."

He talked about the work on the International Space Station, sharing a story about serving as the ground communicator for a space walk to swap out a power switch that controlled two of the eight power cells.

A bolt was stuck fast, forcing NASA scientists to come up with four different tools the astronauts could make out of parts they had, including a toothbrush, to get it loose.

"NASA does impossible pretty darn well," he said.

Up next, he said, is a space station next to the moon and a spacecraft, Orion, that could someday travel to places like Mars and an asteroid. NASA also is working on a robot that can handle repair tasks in space, freeing astronauts for scientific work.

Senior Taz Bales said she was excited to hear from an astronaut.

"Astronauts are so good at everything and so smart and physically fit," she said. "It was really cool."

Sophomore Hampus Akesson called the talk "very insightful and inspiring."

"It's cool to hear somebody from your hometown who has made an impact on the world," he said.

Astronaut Jack Fischer, a Centaurus High School alumnus, speaks to the sophomore and junior classes during an assembly at the Lafayette school Thursday.
(
MARK LEFFINGWELL
)

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